Farming in France

July 19, 2018: We've been on the farm in France for three days now. This is an organic dairy farm. Denis and Colette have a beautiful house that has been in Denis's family for generations. They've taken a beautiful, old farmhouse and made some modern adjustments and it is very comfortable. We are staying in the house with them. They have four children of their own who range from 25-18. The two youngest are currently home and we see them for dinner in the evening as they are gone to their jobs during the day. It was a momentary culture shock for me when we came in from working one day to meet his 18 year old daughter and they sat down to have a beer together while the daughter smoked at the table. They also have a 12 year old foster child who lives with them permanently now. Ophelie and the girls like playing together despite not being able to talk to each other. There is a ton for our kids to do, a small out of ground pool, a trampoline, swings, and loads of toys and games.

When we first arrived on Tuesday at lunch time we sat down to eat with Denis and Colette. Our kids have had to get way out of their comfort zone with food and try new things to be polite. Molly usually survives on ridiculous amounts of bread and butter. After lunch we went to work with Denis. Colette does not do any farming. We drove just a few minutes down the road to one of his fields. This is a beet field. Denis grows the beets for the cows to eat in the winter. Because it is an organic farm they cannot use any pesticides for weeds, etc so the work has to be done by hand. This was back breaking work. We each chose a row of beets and started walking down with our pick/hoe type tools. Denis gave a very brief demonstration and then he was off on his row. He was miles away before I had cleared a few plants. You have to swing your pick to chop away any weeds and get them by the roots. The weather was beautiful; sunny, breezy and cool. After 2 hours we took a break for cookies and beer then went back to work for 30-45 minutes more. This beet field is enormous and will take us a long time to finish. After about 3 hours total of work we got home and had some water then went to our first milking session. All of us got dressed in coverall one piece work suits and tall boots. We walked out to a nearby field and brought the cows in towards the barn. Denis has 28 cows right now. Of the 28, about 24 are currently pregnant. One is due to have her baby any moment. There is also a small calf that was born last week. The calf is female so he will keep her. Once we got all the cows into the pen behind the barn we went into the barn area and he showed us the place where the milking occurs. There is a space that is four steps down from the ground level that we go into. Then we open the doors and three cows come in each door, 3 on each side of the trough we are standing in. We close the gates in front and behind them so they are trapped. The cows know what is happening and what to do. Their rear ends are facing us. First thing we have to wash their udders. You take paper towel and wipe it off. If it is still dirty you get a wet cloth and wash the udders more. Once they are clean you take this suction contraption and put it under the cow. Each one has four suction devices that milk the cow. You apply the suction, then attach one to each udder. It takes around 3-5 minutes for each dow to get milked. Once you see that one is no longer producing a lot of milk, you remove the suction and pull the contraption off. Once all three cows in your side are finished, you open the front gate and they walk out. You close the gate, then let three more cows in the back door and repeat the process. After all 28 cows have been milked (some don't get milked either because they are about to give birth, they are sick and taking medicine, something like that)we wash the whole area with a hose. There is generally cow poop everywhere! After, Denis takes a small amount of milk into a bottle that the kids get to feed to the calf. We milk the cows every morning and evening. The kids have been able to help take part and are into it.

On Wednesday we woke up at 7:15 for a quick, casual breakfast of bread and jam with fruit and went to do the morning milking. After James, Casey and I left with Denis to return to the beet field. This feels like prison labor, it is not fun at all. After doing beets for 2 hours Casey got to ride in the tractor with Denis and cut down a tall field of grasses to bring back to the farm for the cows to eat. Instead of coming to the field, Julia and Molly went into town with Ophelie and Collette to a place where Collette volunteers. I think it is like a library but for toys and games. We met back up at home around 12 for some lunch. After lunch Julia went off in the tractor with Denis to a field a few km away to get better quality grass for more cow food. When he bring the trailer full of grass back he has a cool contraption that moves the grass out of the trailer and then shakes it to roll it off in bunches. He drives along in front of the cow feed area and empties the entire trailer for them to eat. As soon as the cows hear this conveyor belt device start clattering they all start coming in to eat. Then we did some really messy work. We cleaned a lot of poop. Cows poop so much. James learned to drive the small, old tractor that we call the poo-boni. It has a zamboni like thing on the back to push and move large quantities of poop around the farm. The first time he started it up and put it in gear he didn't know how to brake and just kept driving straight, right out of the barn area onto the driveway. It was hilarious. Luckily the gate was open or he would have crashed! We cleared loads of poop out of the barn area, brought in 3 of those giant rolls of new hay to lay down and washed out their drinking basin. There was an evening milking and dinner together with the family outside. They played a few board games and it is another late evening. It is after 11pm and everyone is still awake.

Thursday has been more of the same; milking first thing in the am with beets after. Denis needs to use a machine that he owns with a few other farmers so we drove to the other guy's house to pick it up. They had a bunch of kids and 11 spaniel puppies. Our kids were in heaven! This is a very nice family with a lovely home and loads of work to do. The beet weeding is not fun, but I would rather be doing back breaking work that I know is helping him and keeps us busy. He said we would only do one more session of beet weeding tomorrow morning and then probably stop. We will milk twice a day and do whatever tasks Denis has set out for us. I definitely have a new appreciation for the price of organic milk now that I've sweated to weed their food by hand, wiped their udders of poop (getting poop all over me in the process), and cleaned their poop filled floors.